In Which We Ask That You Reconsider Purchasing This Bill Of Goods

The Power of Objects

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Sex Offender Week on The Awl got me thinking, how long has it been since I wrote something about gender politics? Twenty minutes? Everywhere in L.A. takes twenty minutes! These are my random thoughts on the preeminent intellectual sex symbol television characters of our time. (Timothy Olyphant in Justified, I'll get to you later.)

The Don Draper issue cuts down to some basic things. When women say they want guys to be more like Don Draper, what they are really saying is "we want more guys who look like Jon Hamm." Maybe guys are a little grossed out by how blatantly chicks just drool over him, or jealous because who can compete with a guy who is just naturally incredibly super fucking handsome. But you know, girls are presented with images of physical hyper-idealized femininity a zillion times a day, so I emphathize. 

Other people have said this and I agree, but the Don Draper fantasy is also a fantasy about being Don Draper, which is everyone's fantasy (including Don's). Everybody wants to be hot and talented and rewarded for being hot and talented. Everybody wants to be respected and admired, with a desirable sexual partner in every borough.

Jon Hamm, real guy with the horrible fashion sense of a regular modern day type bro

That masculinity is a performance is not talked about enough, and one thing we need to do more of is help men recognize that it is a performance that they don't have to do (also, to not call them pussies). I see masculine performance everywhere, and it's always weird seeing guy friends put on their bro hats to talk to their bros.

It seems like an act men are doing for each other that neither one really believes in deep down, and even (especially?) smart guys are still prone to it. For a couple of sustained examples, see the recent Robert Downey Jr. and Walter Kirn interview in Rolling Stone, or the David Foster Wallace and David Lipsky book that just came out.

The counterpoint yang to Rivers Cuomo's (nerd who chose to make women the other) yin is Kurt Cobain, whose feelings of being an outsider/faggoty/not a bro actually made him sensitive and sympathetic to women and other historically oppressed groups. Kurt's most subversive and punk instinct was his feminism, which he manifested by wearing dresses on Headbanger's Ball and writing songs like "Rape Me." 

One of Michael Chabon's essays about masculinity was about driving his family through a snowstorm and being totally scared, but insisting on doing it anyway and then pretending he was calm and fearless about it. He talks about how he feigned bravery because his family seemed to need him to do that, that they just wanted somebody to tell them it was going to be okay. So maybe another part of it is that women need to stop telling guys to "man up," because manning up is bullshit that involves stuffing down your feelings, and that never works out well for anyone.

Liz Lemon actually manned up recently on 30 Rock and more or less redefined it as "momming up." The fantasies of manning up/momming up are the same, that somebody else will take charge. Implicit in the taking charge is that the mom or man will disavow all fear, thus placating the rest of the family. The reality is that everyone is somewhat freaked out in the kind of situations that really require charge taking. 

Alex Carnevale said about the Tina Fey backlash (paraphrased) "Why do people want to destroy this beautiful thing that is Liz Lemon? Being pathetic is what makes her original and hilarious." It's true. Watching TV the other day I said excitedly "It's just nice to see so many women portrayed as irresponsible losers." In a lot of comedies, women are often stuck being the straight man, and how boring is that.

Current sitcoms are full of wonderful omega females. Julia Louis Dreyfus's Elaine Benes is the template (maybe Rhoda if you want to go back further, maybe Gracie Allen if you want to go back even further than that) and she is great in CBS's Old Christine (as is Wanda Sykes). Amy Poehler is amazing on Parks & Recreation, as is Aubrey Plaza. All the minor female roles on The Office: Angela, Kelly Kapoor, Meredith, Phyllis. 

Modern Family's ginger/bear gay couple, and originator The Sarah Silverman Show's 

Sarah Silverman on The Sarah Silverman Show should sue Modern Family for ripping off their Ginger + Bear gay couple. They even stole the way that Brian Posehn and Steve Agee's characters never make out on the show because their intimacy is so deeply normal and boring like any other super long term serious couple. 

As for Liz Lemon's sexuality, it's something I think about all the time. We always hear how she'd rather do anything than have sex, but she apparently fucked Grizz (LOL). Comedians are almost always oversexed, for a comedian to be sort of prim and prudish is a great and relatively un-mined field for comedy.

did they get this idea from Kristen Wiig's baby doll hands Lawrence Welk character?

However the fact that she cast Jon Hamm as her love interest and has a now twice-mentioned Disney prince fetish (who doesn't?) tells me that Tina Fey's sexuality is actually a much deeper well that is quite far from being entirely pumped yet. 

But she should never be criticized for not admitting that she's hot, as though that equivocates to not "owning" her sexuality. Tina Fey is markedly more of a second wave feminist than a third. She is against strip clubs and will definitely not be thrilled when her daughter is old enough to shop at American Apparel.

All gender is a performance. That all it takes to turn Tina Fey from a normal person into a bombshell is some makeup, high heels, and a push-up bra is mostly a testament to the extreme fetishistic powers of makeup, high heels, and push-up bras.

Not to undermine her fantastic rack, but the boobs and the dark eyeliner and stripey mauve blush are just a smokeshow for what is actually hot about Tina Fey, which is (duh) her brain. That she is hottest with her glasses on just reinforces that we are actually attracted to how fucking smart and funny she is.

"Hot" Tina Fey is just Tina Fey in "sexy" feminine drag, just like Don Draper is just Dick Whitman/Jon Hamm in hyper-masculine drag. Maybe women just like guys in a suit. But it's actually probably just because rape fantasies (Don D. Raper).

"Rape fantasy" is kind of an oxymoron, as actual rape is by definition unpleasant, and at the very least the concept is a lot more grey-shaded than the words imply. Also, you know, lots of people fantasize about and fetishize things they have no interest in acting out in real life. See you in the rape tunnel!

What Don Draper and Liz Lemon really stand for is the fairly common fantasy that somebody else will step in and take care of everything else for you. Once thought of as a primarily female fantasy, the truth is that nobody wants to work full time in a soul-killing job, and men and women now both aspire equally to being stay at home trophy spouses. This is not a great or realistic fantasy for anyone because a) everybody has to work and b) basing your identity around somebody else will lead to resentment and contempt. That's why The Feminine Mystique got written in the first place!

Tying up your self-esteem with somebody else's accomplishments, even/especially somebody you love, is going to screw you over and make you feel terrible in the long run. However in a terrible economy where the bulk of jobs are both super shitty and competitively sought after, it makes a lot of sense. But if you really want to be happy, it's best to take the wheel yourself. Otherwise you're going to be so pissed when Don Draper drinks too much and crashes it into a ditch while fbanging Bobbie Barrett (and also like "her?") and it'll be nobody's fault but your own.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She is on twitter and tumblr.

"Talkin' Smooth" - Kate Voegele (mp3)

"Manhattan from the Sky" - Kate Voegele (mp3)

"We The Dreamers (demo)" - Kate Voegele (mp3)

In Which We Made Every Kind Of Sandwich Imaginable And A Cake

Get Your Own Damn Coffee

by MOLLY LAMBERT 

If there's anything we learned this week from media, it's that everybody's got a backburner, but nobody wants to be somebody else's fallback option. Betty is tired of being Don's fallback, and we can't blame her any more than we can blame Don for wanting to keep that fine shorty on layaway. Everybody wants a wife. 

Conrad Hilton is a prick. Even Don thinks so, and Don has been putting up with it a lot this season. This season has been all about the importance of paternal affirmation, and how the pursuit of it can lead to putting the wrong bitches on the backburner.

all of those who are white males over the age of 35, raise your hand and say aye

In order to make it work, Don has to go on a hero's quest of apologies to Roger Sterling, Pete Campbell, and Peggy. Roger wants to see Don with his tail between his legs (who doesn't?) I still hate the flashbacks to Dick Whitman's childhood, informative as they are about Don's backstory, maybe because it strains credibility in a show that is already getting a pass on a lot of things for being a period piece.

Don's father Archie Whitman (Artist's Rendering)

Like I am willing to pretend things were somehow more theatrical and dramatic because it is "the sixties" but when they go back to "the depression" to show Don's dad Archie Whitman chugging moonshine and arguing with Dick's ma about bank notices and crops I'm like "come on now, this is ridiculous."

Flashbacks are the lowest form of narrative storytelling devices! sorry Lost fans!

These are quibbles of course. I didn't much like it at first when Tony Soprano flashed back to his childhood, nor did I like it later when they abruptly stopped doing flashbacks. I learned to care for the dream sequences in The Sopranos, which is why I give Betty the benefit of the doubt on her Medgar Evers nightmare. 

Betty is a tough bitch and drops the big D for dee-vorce on Don. Now that she knows Don was born poor, all his handsomeness no longer pleases her. She would rather go with some less attractive landed gentry because he promises to take care of her and means it. Henry Francis knows the life Betty is accustomed to, like which is the salad fork and how to eat cucumber sandwiches and drink a lot and ignore your children.

That things went as well as they did was the big shock of this Mad Men finale. From the tone of the rest of the season I assumed the characters were going to end up in a horrible random tragedy to underline the timeliness of last week's JFK shooting.

Last week I said that every character in Mad Men was at least a little bit sympathetic, I meant to say that the exception is the British guy from The Nanny. I honestly thought they were going to give him one redeeming quirk or vulnerability in this episode, but he stayed straight evil. I guess it was meant to throw our feelings completely over to Lane Pryce, since we are now accepting him as part of the newly formed supergroup that is Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Campbell-Pryce-Olson-Crane-Holloway-Harris. 

"Beg me, you didn't even ask me?"/"Everyone thinks you do all my work, even you."

The old boys' club reconvenes to shoot their own legs off. Don, high on the fumes of his own testosterone, calls in Peggy for a quick domination session. Peggy, high on the estrogen generated by her nooners with Duck, tells Don to fuck off. Don, unable to swallow his pride, accepts Peggy's first neg and claims he's going to make a pass at Smitty and the homo. Hey Don, if you're gonna hire a homo why not call up Salvatore?

Pete, as always, provides inadvertent comic relief pretending to be sick and pulling out the chip and dip for Don and Roger. Pete looks really good and "Dead Poets Society" in his plaid bathrobe. Don, fresh from his Peggy neg, straight up tells Pete that he wants his expertise (meaning accounts). Pete's extended hand "I'm not really sick" was the second best line of the episode. Trudy is so turned on by Pete's exceptionalism that she fully forgives him for his earlier dalliance with the kraut nanny. 

Roger drops the "Henry Francis" info bomb on Don. Despite the fact that everyone is coming clean about their secrets, Don still failed to tell anyone about schtupping the teacher. Hard to teach an old dog new tricks I guess. When Don pulled Betty out of the bed and gave her that hot "because you're good and everyone else in the world is bad" spiel I really thought the other shoe might drop. Will Suzanne show up again or will Don's wandering hobo dick push the reset button as per usual.

Don and Betty Draper in happier (?) days, can't remember which season this is from

Instead Don gives Betty crazy eyes and and a lot of nightgown tugging, without a patented Don Draper vag-grab although there is a decidedly sexual undertone to their fight. How dare you cuckold Don Draper! His cock is the hammer of the gods! What will happen now to the John Updike/Cheever story that was "Life In Ossining"?

yes Don, the best way to get back your estranged wife is to call her a whore

Endless slash-fic possibilities when Pete says "I'll admit it, I'm a little scared" to Harry Crane in the elevator at the empty Sterling-Coop office. Bert Cooper welcomes them to the fold like the bohemian Gandalf he is. Don is late to the office because he has to have the traumatizing divorce discussion with his children about having two Christmases and why daddy had to sleep in Gene the baby's scary room. When Don says it's temporary and Betty starts shaking her head "no" I straight LOL'd.

Don, finally ready to be emasculated, goes over to Peggy's place and gives her a weird sort of condescending lecture about how he wants her to come because he views her as part of himself? Basically it's still all about Don. Then he claims they both understand personal trauma because la la la secret baby/identity. Don tells Peggy that even if she negs him a third time, he will spend the rest of his life trying to get back in her work-pants. Notice how the women were wearing pants this episode? Subtle. 

Joan made a list, and remained fabulous while doing so. When they said the art department was locked I dreamt for a moment they'd call Sal. That guy knows how to keep a secret! Joan and Roger are already flirting, and when Rog asks Peggy to get him some coffee she gets the episode's best line; "NO." Don and Roger take a long minute to survey the big room at Sterling Cooper for the last time, and I got sad thinking about on The Wire when they finish a case and take all the index cards down.

Don calls the Draper residence for the last time ever to tell Betty where he is (as if she gives a fuck). He calls her Betts, as if that's going to soften her any. Betty, ever the icy cunt tells Don "well, you'll always be their father," sounding resigned that she fucked up her life by procreating with this handsome loser/happy that she's ditching it to hit the casinos of Reno with her new daddy. Meanwhile, the Draper children get a way better mom in Carla, so maybe good deal? Unless you are Carla's children?

Don takes his suitcases down a rainy New York city street set to the heartbreak hometel. But don't worry Don, these streets will make you feel brand new, these lights will inspire you, cause you're in NEW YORK! NEW YORK! God I hate that fucking song (more to come about that). Sadly no more to come about Mad Men until summer.

So many questions remain. Did Peggy dump Duck? What sort of a bachelor will Don Draper be? What will happen to tragic nobleman Paul Kinsey? Charmed gladstone wonderboy Ken Cosgrove? And what about Sal? We're all pulling for you, Sal.

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She also tumbls and twitters.

THIS RECORDING IS THE VIRTUAL HOTEL OFFICE OF THE FUTURE

In Which Tomorrow Night's Mad Men Finale Will Solve All

The End of Draperian Monogamy

by ELEANOR MORROW

As we await the third season finale of Mad Men tomorrow night, the best show on television appeared to have wrapped-up its Draper-related storylines by having Don stay together with his wife. Now she has to make a crucial decision between some weird-looking politician and her hunky Dick Whitman of a husband. All we can surmise from this glorious season is that Trudy is having none of it.

Incensed by the ministrations of wife Trudy, Pete Campbell killed President Kennedy. He did it with the candlestick, in Texas. Pete Campbell is the true mastermind of the Oklahoma City bombing, which we can only hope Mad Men takes great pains to emulate in roughly 2027.

What you share with your wife was of questionable utility on this week's Curb Your Enthusiasm. You should not share anything with your wife, especially not your finances, or secret Dick Whitman photos. Do me a favor. Dress like this:

And shut up. Pete Cambell was on the receiving end of a demotion. Pryce coos to Pete that his rival makes clients feel "like they don't have needs." Pete's initial paranoia is justified, and he is walking out an elevator while Peggy discusses banging yet another of his co-workers. "They're homos," Duck tells Peggy when he tries to get her to take her underclothes. Is he right?

Don turns off the TV, tells his daughter everything is all right. In his sweater vests and stagey sexuality we respected him so much more when he was telling Suzanne that she made him feel things he's never felt before. Now he's signed over his things to the kookiest blond on Draper Court. Don's wife's hoo ha smells like a nectarine.

Ms. Draper's peculiar political homo proposed to her, and now awaits his reply like an election result. He is perhaps addicted to this scent, or else as a graying old man he can no longer solicit the affections of single women. Ms. Draper made out with him in the car, which is like the only rest stop on the long road to unsatisfying infidelity. But cheating is by nature a displeasurable task.

Roger Sterling is a man of means. He once cribbed together a suitable wedding toast from the vast disappointments of his business partner and wife. His daughter is rendered happy in her institution of marriage. She is the only one. Roger makes phone calls from his wife's bedside, praises his first wife, wishes for another. Can nothing stall these unending dreams of desire?

If nothing else, a daughter knows how to control her parents. Examples of other demanding daughters include

Lee Harvey Oswald was a committed Communist, just as committed to his cause as any of us are to our own particular causes. Others know not want cause they should commit to, and end up in "marketing." Pete Campbell's future is bleak, just wait until he experiences the cagey unrest of the Y2K bug.

With a hard decision looming, it's best to boil things down to Ms. Draper's imaginative meeting with her father's estate lawyer. "Is he a good provider?" the guy asks her, as if he doesn't know the answer! I wish I could pay someone to slowly force me to accept the decisions I've made in my life through passive-aggressive rhetorical questions. Actually, I can probably secure the same lawyer- he's likely still practicing in the Long Island area.

Nevermind the accoutrements. How can we be happy in our own skins without legal aid? At least someone has figured out how. Perhaps she gives lessons.

Eleanor Morrow is the senior contributor to This Recording. She is a writer living in Manhattan. She tumbls here.

"First Song for B" - Devendra Banhart (mp3)

"Last Song for B" - Devendra Banhart (mp3)

"Angelika" - Devendra Banhart (mp3)

learn more about Mr. Banhart's new album What Will We Be here